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Wednesday, May 07, 2008

JLPGA Player Rankings

Here is my first attempt at ranking players from the JLPGA. I stress the word “attempt” because I was forced to alter my usual system to use the information that is available on the JLPGA website, not to mention that I had to rely on the Google translation of that site. Some of the translated player names are real head-scratchers – stuff like “Junko Table” for Junko Omote, “Satoshi Ri Princess” for Ji-Hee Lee and my favorite, “Osamu Hiroshi immovable” for Yuri Fudoh. It made for a rather interesting study!

Here I use scoring average, money list, victories and missed cuts in a similar way to my LPGA system. Since Top 10 Percentage doesn’t seem to be available (I could have calculated it on my own but…), I substituted GIR as the fifth category (albeit at a lesser weight – I give victories more weight to counter that adjustment). If The Constructivist can help me find Top 10 Percentage, I’ll feel a lot better about the whole thing. I’m also only going to list the Top 10 players, at least until I’m more confident in the results. This ranking is based purely on 2008 statistics (through the Crystal Geyser Ladies Open) and for comparison’s sake, I’m putting the player’s current Rolex Ranking in parentheses.

The top three are very close – Yokomine is the only one of the three who hasn’t won this year, but she leads in scoring average, is fifth in money and leads in GIR. Through eight events, no player has won more than once so the whole Top 10 is fairly compressed. That should change by the time I update the rankings, probably in a couple of months.

I’m not hating on Yuri Fudoh again, she ranks 11th. Everyone in front of her has won more money (primarily because she’s only played five events) and has a better scoring average so despite her victory at the Accordia Golf Ladies Cup, she doesn’t make the first ten. If “Osamu Hiroshi immovable” winds up with her typical two-to-six victories this season, she’ll move up.

For comparison, here's my first BCS-style Best Off the LPGA (minus yours, but including the 2007 money list) JLPGA ranking from late March. I like your method better, as usual, as I think it captures who's playing the best this season very well. Subjectively, I'd maybe rank Saiki a little higher, but that's more based on her past achievements than her current ones.

I'm itching to see you expand this to a top 30 before the end of May, when I update my ranking. (I think this year I'm going to alternate JLPGA and LPGA, rather than try to bring the KLPGA and LET into it from the start, as I suggested in that post.)

Both of those methods would give me a total of Top 10 finishes but I would also have to divide by the number of events played to get Top 10 Percentage, which is what I use in my LPGA system. Since each player has played a different number of events, you see the complication. I used Method 2 to get Missed Cuts, but I only need to count those.

How about if I e-mail you my spreadsheet and point chart (free of charge!!) so you can tally it up yourself? I'm not likely going to have the time to do it before the end of May.

I'd be happy to take a look at the inner workings of your spreadsheet, but by late May I should have time to do a run down of the top 10%ages of my previously top-30-ranked players--let's say after May 25th, to be safe. Then you can plug it in yourself and keep your trade secrets to yourself!

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About Me

I'm Ken Hartis, a forty-something dude from the Southeast USA. Grew up watching the Masters on TV every year. Started following the LPGA occasionally a few years ago, but really got addicted around the time Grace Park jumped in the water at the 2004 Kraft Nabisco. I like to think of my ladies' golf fanaticism as "my mid-life crisis". It's a lot cheaper than buying a Harley! Thanks for checking out the site, drop by anytime! You can contact me directly at hounddog.lpga@yahoo.com